Stalybridge Tornado: 'We're on an unadopted street and no one wanted to take responsibility'

Tuesday, 9 January 2024 11:21

A Millbrook resident whose home was destroyed by the recent tornado has claimed that residents have wanted the tree, which fell into her home, gone ‘for years’.

Maisie Pilkington and fiancé Ben were left devastated when the tree, uprooted by Storm Gerrit, fell through their roof.

“We were always told it couldn’t be cut down as it was owned by someone,” she said.

“But we weren’t allowed to know who it was owned by, so we’ve had to submit a Freedom of Information request to find out.”

Maisie described the moment she realised the severity of the damage to their house.

“The noise all happened at once – the tree coming down, the car being crushed, the wind, car alarms, dogs barking.

“The house was shaking so we jumped up and when I opened our bedroom door, it was just full of what looked like smoke but obviously it must have been dust from the roof.

“My first thought was that we were having an earthquake because all the walls were cracking. Someone was banging on the door and it was only when we answered it that we saw the car in the state it was.”

She said it was "around ten minutes" before the couple noticed a tree had fallen onto their house.

“My dad only lives four doors up so him and my boyfriend headed back into the house to see where the tree had fallen. They couldn’t get in the bathroom so that’s when we knew that the roof had completely fallen in on it.”

The primary education student continued: “It got to around 2am and we were still stood in the street with debris flying about. Even the police were a bit baffled about what to do, they just cornered it off and asked if we had an alternative place to stay.”

She described the "nightmare" they had experienced in trying to arrange the removal of the tree, saying that anyone who came out to do the job cancelled on arrival as they had not been told the tree was in a house.

Maisie felt that assistance from local authorities was also very limited as she was told Grenville Street was an "unadopted" street.

“No one wanted to take responsibility for it, we were just issued with a Section 54 and told that we couldn’t enter the property or move past the fence that had been put up.

“We requested that a fence was also put up behind our house as it backs onto a public bridleway and we had many people, who weren’t too familiar with the area, walking through. Nothing was done about this and we had to erect a makeshift fence ourselves due to lots of families passing through the area.”

The tree was removed on Monday, January 8, by the Nick Bailey Tree Surgeon team.